Use of stimulus collars to train and control animal behavior dates back nearly three-quarters of a century to the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 2,023,950 in 1935 by Carter. Twenty-one years later Putnam unveiled a sound activated stimulus collar to control dog barking in U.S. Pat. No. 2,741,224. Pettingill introduced a similar device 5 years later in 1961 under U.S. Pat. No. 2,996,043. One of the first radio controlled stimulus collars was introduced by Cameron in 1957 under U.S. Pat. No. 2,800,104. U.S. Pat. No. 3,589,337 subsequently taught an improved radio controlled dog collar in 1971 that provides increased shock intensity for insensitive animals or when the collar battery attenuates.
Since that time, improvements to accurate control, effective range, battery life, and simultaneous operation of multiple stimulus collars have advanced the technology. For example Tobias teaches a means to deliver voice commands directly to an animal collar in U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,696. Kim extends battery longevity by teaching a transmitter that automates signal duration in U.S. Pat. No. 6,598,563. McFarland teaches forward error correction to increase the effective range of accurate collar control in US Patent application 20070181078. Recent disclosures like US Patent application 20070056526 teach methods to find collar control transmitters that are lost in the field. Other illustrative embodiments of animal training and hunting collars are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,046,152, 5,934,225, 7,068,174, and 6,874,447 and in US Patent Application Publication 20070181078.
Considerable attention is given to automated control of animal stimulus collars in prior art. Early variations of automated control employed sound activation as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,741,224. The teachings of U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,421,979, 6,575,120, and US Patent Applications 20060226994 and 20040239507 employ buried wires that serve as containment barriers of an invisible fence to control animal stimuli. RF and acoustic Range Collars like those taught by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,769,032, 6,191,693, 6,542,080, 6,825,768, 6,961,001, 6,874,447, 6,879,300, 7,046,152 and 7,173,535 and US Patent applications 20010040508 and 20070096929 advanced the technology by eliminating the need to bury conductive loop wires around the containment perimeter.
Recent prior art is directed toward autonomous animal containment and control that relies in part on GPS. A sample embodiment of GPS controlled animal stimuli was introduced in 1999 by Marsh under U.S. Pat. No. 5,868,100 and WO9801023 to control grazing animals. Marsh and other teachings including U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,271,757, 604,374, 6,232,880, 6,232,916, 6,342,847, 6,923,146, 6,700,492, 5,949,350, and 7,034,695. US Patent Application 20060197672, and international patents WO 2005034617 A1, WO 2004114238 A2, EP 1632787 A1, CA 02214238, and WO 9801023 A3 use transmitters and other key-in style devices to establish GPS coordinates that make up vertices of a containment boundary that is stored on a computer or other electronic device. Variations of these prior art teach means to stimulate animals with vibratory, electrostatic, acoustic commands, right-left coordinated sound, and praising responses to control animal behavior. Schmitt teaches a GPS fence and an ultrasonic link to contain groups of animals in U.S. Pat. No. 6,956,483. US Patent Application 20080036610 by Hokuf teaches an animal tracking unit that sends GPS tracking info back to an external device such as a portable navigation unit that displays animal location.